“But they have rooms?”
“No, they never did have rooms. They were only a hotel.”
Words have strange meanings in the far interior of South America.
All that was left me was the posada, an ancient, dark, and gloomy one-story building around a patio, full of the scent and noises of mules and horses, and of arrieros wrapped in their blankets. Even the corner policeman advised me to keep the “room” offered me and be thankful. It was fortunate that Hays had not arrived, for both of us could scarcely have crowded into the damp, earthy-smelling dungeon, to say nothing of occupying the plank “bed.” Evidently he had found lodging somewhere along the way. During the day I had laid forty-two miles behind me, yet so fresh had I arrived that I went out for a stroll before retiring to pass a night almost as cold as in Bogotá, dressed in every rag I owned, with two adobe bricks as pillow, and as covering against the bitter cold that crept in even through the closed door—the privilege of hugging myself.
I had taken my coffee and wandered the streets of Pasto for an hour next morning when I suddenly sighted Hays, accompanied by a ruana-clad native. Usually as immaculate as conditions permitted, he was now unwashed, unshaven, bedraggled, drawn of features and generally disreputable, with a sheepish look that turned to relief at sight of me. He had a sad story to tell. Lost in some dream, he had overlooked my arrow in the sand and taken the old stony road over the Berruecos range. It was a shorter route in miles, and had the doubtful advantage of leading him past the very spot at which Sucre was assassinated; but the now abandoned trail of colonial days was in such a condition that he had several times come near breaking a leg, if not his neck. Limping at last into town, late at night, he had wandered the streets for some time in vain, when two natives asked if he was looking for lodging. Congratulating himself on his good fortune, he fell into step with them. A square or two further on one of the pair disclosed a policeman’s “night-stick” hanging from his arm. Hays excused himself and turned away, only to be halted with the information that the law of Pasto required that any stranger arriving after eight at night be taken to the police station. The ex-corporal of the Zone, accustomed for years to order his subordinates to lock up other men, was appalled at the notion of being himself locked up. His affronted dignity favored the pair with some of the most expressive Castilian to be found within the covers of Ramsey. All in vain. At the station the lieutenant, who rose from a troubled sleep with a towel around his head, was courtesy itself, explaining that Pasto would not dream of subjecting so distinguished a foreigner to arrest. But as the night was late and the streets cold, they were doing him the favor of lodging him, not in jail, but in the police barracks. Looked at in that light, and at that hour, the affair assumed a new aspect. Hays voiced his thanks and slipped from under his pack. A policeman led him to the squad room, gave him a reed mat to spread on the floor beside the score already asleep, and covered him with one of the red and blue ruanas of Pasto. On such terms I would gladly have spent the night under arrest myself. At midnight there had rushed into the room all the policemen on duty in town. Each dragged his relief to his feet and at once dived into the vacated “bed,” leaving Pasto for a half-hour at the mercy of the lawless. At dawn the order to muster was sounded. The policemen each and all turned over for another nap, and only rose when the querulous little chief of police came to give the order in person, even then after considerable argument. Hays had started to take his leave, but was called back to give his pedigree. The government paper was in my hands. The chief apologized for the necessity, but put him in charge of the ruana-clad detective until he could examine the document in question.
We planned to spend several days in Pasto, but our efforts to get better lodgings did not meet with rosy success. We were once even on the point of renting a two-story house on a corner of the plaza—only to find that though it had room enough to accommodate a score of persons, it was furnished simply and exclusively with the wooden-floored bedsteads indigenous to the Andes. Meanwhile, the bridal chamber of the posada was vacated and we fell heirs to it—at nine cents a day each.
The capital of Colombia’s southernmost department, claiming a population of 16,000, sits in the capacious lap of the extinct Pasto volcano, seeming, in spite of its 14,000 feet elevation, a mere hill, for the city itself is more lofty than Bogotá. By no means so backward and fanatical a mountain town as described by its rivals to the north, it proved the most lively and progressive place we chanced upon between the Cauca and Ecuador. A highway links it with the outside world by way of Tuquerres and Barbacoas, thence by boat to the island port of Tumaco on the Pacific. Yet there remains much provincialism and a stout clinging to the ways and the medieval faith of colonial days. With few exceptions the entire population kneels in the street when any high churchman moves abroad. In one of the many overgrown churches is a glorified letter-box with a sign exhorting the “faithful” to write to San José, reputed to have his dwelling-place near the town, requests for those favors they wish granted, and enclosing something for José’s coin-box. Once a week the letters are removed by a monk and, the worldly offering having been extracted, are burned before the statue of the saint. Wheeled traffic, of course, is unknown in Pasto; virtually everything of importance comes up from the sea on muleback. The most ambitious native handicraft we found was the making of tiples, crude guitars of red cedar and white pine.
At first sight Pasto has the aspect of a mighty mart of trade. Every street is lined from suburb to suburb by the wide-open doorways of shallow shops crammed with wares incessantly duplicated. To all appearances, there are more sellers than buyers. Pride in hidalgo blood, however diluted, is evidently so widespread that no one works who can in any way avoid it, all preferring to sit behind a counter in the hope of selling ten cents’ worth of something a day to earning as many dollars in some productive labor at the risk of soiling their fingers. Most numerous are the food-shops, run chiefly by women, who find ample time between clients to do their housekeeping in a Colombian way. An inventory of one display, sloping from sidewalk to ceiling, is a description of all. Large, irregular bricks of salt, pinkish in color, and rectangular blocks of the muddy-brown first-product of the sugar-cane, form the basis of every heap. Next in order are cones of half-refined sugar, a variety of home-made sweets, long slabs of yellow soap from which is cut whatever amount the purchaser desires; baskets of small potatoes, of shelled corn, and quinoa. Then there are oranges and bananas of several varieties, plantains, mangoes, strings of onions, heaps of one, two, and four-cent loaves of wheat bread, or pan de queso,—a mixture of flour and grated cheese—the largest of which barely attains the size of a respectable American biscuit. An abundance of canned goods, largely from the United States, invariably forms the top of the pyramid. These imported wares seem to have little sale among the natives, being kept in stock apparently in the fond hope of the arrival of stray gringos exuding wealth at every pore. To the townsmen, indeed, the prices are almost prohibitive. A can of “salmon,” filled with pale and ancient carp and deteriorated coloring matter, cost 65 cents; a five-cent box of American crackers was valued at 36 cents! “Tabacos,” as the black stogie of local make and consumption is called, a few iron-heavy cups and saucers, odds and ends of gaudy dishes, and small edibles and trinkets, fill in the interstices of every display.
Almost as numerous are the hawkers of strong drink, likewise women, who fall back upon their sewing between customers. Competition is livelier in this line, and prices correspondingly lower. A bottle of Milwaukee beer sold at 40 cents. Countless cloth-shops, with bolts of cheap grade and of every color of the rainbow piled high in the doorways; boticas, or dingy little drug-stores of breath-taking prices; and establishments offering everything that can by any stretch of the imagination be rated hardware, appear to be the chief male pastimes. Like so many towns of the Andes, Pasto does not seem to indulge in any form of intellectual recreation; unless the art of conversation, so diligently practiced, can be rated such. There is not a bookstore in town. In a few shops are piled, among other wares, stacks of religious volumes and Catholic propaganda, including school-books dealing chiefly with the lives of the saints; but nothing more. It is a “changeless” town. There were once plenty of medios and, earlier still, cuartillos, we were informed; but these small pieces had all been given in alms to the Church. The smallest coin still in circulation is the real—the word centavo disappears at the department boundary. He who buys a lump of sugar or a salt rock must take home a needle, an onion, or a banana in change. At the post-office, where the real is accepted at something less than in the public markets, the purchaser may take his change in stamps, though the pastuso custom seems to be to give it to the clerk as a “tip.”
High as it lies, Pasto is but two days muleback from the great montaña, the hot lands and the beginning of the Amazon system. Just out beyond the cold mountain lakes of La Laguna comes a quick descent to Caquetá and the great jungles of eastern South America. Hence we saw in the streets of Pasto not merely the now familiar “civilized” Indian of the highlands, plodding behind his no more stolid bulls laden with the produce of his chacras, but also no small number of “wild men” from the wilderness. These have a free, happy, independent air, in marked contrast to the manner of the dismal mountain Indian; none of the cautious, laborious, canny attitude toward life of those subject to the environment of high altitudes. They appear to hold the domesticated Indian in great scorn, and mix far more freely with the other classes of the population. Dressed in what could easily be mistaken for the running pants of an athlete, their marvelously developed bronzed legs are bare in any weather. A light ruana covers their shoulders. A few wear a gray wool skullcap; most of them only their matted, thick, black hair, cut short across the neck in “Dutch doll” fashion. There were always several women in each group, but one must look sharply to make sure of the sex, dressed identically like their male companions, bare legs, hair-cut, and all.